IEEE 802.11ax, referred to as High Efficiency WLAN (HEW), is a successor to IEEE 802.11ac standard and is intended to increase the efficiency of wireless local-area networks (WLANs). HEW's goal is to provide up to four-times or more the throughput of IEEE 802.11ac standard. HEW may be particularly suitable in high-density hotspot and cellular offloading scenarios with many devices competing for the wireless medium may have low to moderate data rate requirements. The Wi-Fi standards have evolved from IEEE 802.11b to IEEE 802.11g/a to IEEE 802.11n to IEEE 802.11ac and now to IEEE 802.11ax. In each evolution of these standards, there were mechanisms to afford coexistence with the previous standard. For HEW, the same requirement exists for coexistence with these legacy standards. One issue with HEW is the efficient allocation and use of bandwidth. In certain situations, bandwidth may go unused to the operation of legacy devices on only a portion of the available bandwidth.
Thus there are general needs for systems and methods that that allow HEW devices to coexist with legacy devices. There are also general needs for systems and methods that that allow HEW devices to coexist with legacy devices and more efficiently allocate and use the available bandwidth.